Head of Department

Dr. Ruslan V. Vovk is the Doctor of Sciences and Professor in the School of Physics of V.N. Karazin Kharkov National University (KhNU). In 1990, completed postgraduate studies at the Low Temperature Physics Department of M. Gorky Kharkov State University.

He received his Diploma (1990), Ph.D (1998) and D.Sc. in physics and mathematics (2008) from the School of Physics of the Kharkov State University (now V.N. Karazin Kharkov National University), Ukraine.

Dr. Vovk has also been appointed as Professor in the Physics Department at the Ukrainian State Academy of Railway Transport (USART) in Kharkov (since 2000). He served as the Head (Chair) of the General Technical Department and since 2008 he serves as the Head (Chair) of the Physics Department at the USART (Kharkov). He is member of the Editorial Board of the Journal “Vestnik – Bulletin” of V.N. Karazin Kharkov National University, in the series: “Physics”.

He developed and currently teaches the following four courses: 1. “Medical and Biological Physics”, 2. “Physics of superconductivity”, 3. “Physics of quantum liquids” and 4. “General Physics”. He has supervised and presently supervises a number of Ph.D students.

His scientific activities cover a wide range of materials science with the main focus being in high temperature superconductivity and the study of the evolution of anisotropic systems of quasi-particle excitations in quantum fluids. He has won twice (in 1994 and 1997) the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine grant for young scientists. He was a postdoctoral research Fellow at the University of Exeter (UK), from 2002 to 2004 at the world famous "quantum fluids" group of Prof. A.F.J. Wyatt FRS. His research was on temporal and spatial evolution of anisotropic boson systems in superfluid 4He. He developed the scientific foundations in a new field of low and very low temperatures physics: the dynamics of subsystems of quasi-particle excitations in structural and kinematic anisotropy. He first developed the experimental technique of detecting separately the high-and the low-energy phonons in superfluid quantum liquids, and set the patterns of the generation of “hot” h-phonons at various stages of distribution of “cold”- l-phonon pulse. He first proposed and implemented a method for studying the processes of interaction of several independent phonon beams when they collide in superfluid 4He and observed the phenomenon of generating "hot lines" at very low temperatures. For his work in the above theme was awarded a special medal of the European Scientific Society.

He is author and co-author of more than 200 papers. He has contributed in international conference more than 70 presentations. For his scientific and academic work, he was many times awarded and in 2008 and 2011 was the first recipient of the prestigious Karazin Prize (Ukraine).